The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Edmund, King and Martyr. The church has ALWAYS been dedicated to St. Edmund, but for some 380 years people thought the dedication was to St. Mary Magdalene. Nor reason for the error has been noted.

A chapelry existed here as early as 1240.

The church was re-built in the early 14th century, and little of the older building has survived.

"BENTLEY is a small agricultural parish, in the same hundred
as Tissington, about a mile and a half, south, from that village. Part of the old
Manor house is still standing, and is occupied as a farm house. The church,
which is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, is a small structure with a low
tower: the living is a discharged rectory, in the patronage of the Dean of Lincoln.
The parish contained, at the last census, 308 inhabitants."

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835]